Tony Mokbel desperate for his day in court

After a hunger strike in his lonely prison cell, Tony Mokbel is determined to get his freedom but several hurdles are standing in the way of his court date.

Fat Tony Mokbel was looking thin as he tuned in to the latest court hearing in his bid for freedom.

Sitting in Barwon Prison staring into a computer screen, Mokbel now wears a moustache and has replaced his favourite red tie with a black one.

His lawyer, Ruth Shann, told a directions hearing on Tuesday the delays in his appeal, now four years and counting, had dragged on long enough.

Ms Shann said Mokbel had dealt with a “high level of distress’’ since first filing his appeal against his convictions in 2017.

She said as a result of Mokbel “nearly being killed’’ in 2019 when two inmates attacked him, Mokbel has languished in a management unit of the jail where he has no contact with others and only gets to spend a little time in a concrete yard alone each day.

The convicted drug lord has recently been on hunger strike in protest to his conditions, which Ms Shann described as “unbelievable’’.

Tony Mokbel in his red tie.

“We have a client who wants this matter listed for hearing now,’’ Ms Shann said.

She said the usual “remedy’’ for this kind of delay would be a bail application.

But given Mokbel fled a Supreme Court trial while on bail in 2006, eventually sailing a yacht to Greece, he is unlikely to try for bail in the hope he can overturn his numerous drug convictions next year.

Mokbel is arguing he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice because his lawyer – Nicola Gobbo, aka Lawyer X -was a police informer recruited to snitch on him.

But there are still several hurdles standing in the way of Mokbel and his day in court.

First, the agreed facts of the case are still up in the air.

Second, Mokbel is still waiting on important documents from his prosecutors.

Third, prosecutors have made public interest immunity claims to stop Mokbel gaining access to some of the information it holds.

Among the information Mokbel is seeking is what inducements were given to informers and witnesses who helped get him convicted.

Tony Mokbel after his arrest in Greece.

They include Gobbo and three men given the pseudonyms Mr Cooper, Mr Thomas and Mr Bickley.

Mokbel is also still waiting on the prosecution’s written case, which is certain to raise factual disputes with his own case.

Court hearings will deal with these issues.

Mokbel, known to love a punt, has already had win so far in his bid to walk out of jail well before his earliest release date in 2033.

His 2006 cocaine conviction was quashed last year due to Lawyer X representing him at that trial.

Mokbel fled that trial, apparently after tip-off from Gobbo, before a jury found him guilty.

The flamboyant gangland figure eventually travelled across the Nullarbor before boarding a yacht off the coast of Western Australia and sailing to Greece.

Now, 15-years on, Mokbel feels frustrated by police tardiness and can’t wait to get back into court.

How the wheel turns.